Dav's dissection

The Bangladesh captain said at the toss that he wanted improvement in two areas, 1) more from his top order - well he certainly got it from his openers who scored 158 before Tamim Iqbal was run out. What he didn't figure was a procession of dismissals that followed. Anmaul, Shakib,Shabbir, Mushfiqur, Mahamadulla and Mashrafe.

Yes the batting order was changed and I agree with demoting Mominul when after 30 overs both openers were still at the crease. The danger is that the batsmen who are padded up ready to go in see how easy batting is and they forget that both openers had taken plenty of overs to play themselves in before accelerating. The result is complacency sets in and each batsman leaves the job of scoring to the next one.

I still come back to the value of 30 overs and no wicket down, that gives the following batsmen time to get set or in this case, recovery when a cluster of wickets fall. Despite losing 8 wickets in the last 20 overs, Bangladesh were still able to score a respectable 251. If Mashrafe was offered that total at the toss, I rather feel he would have taken it.

The area to work on and there is always areas to focus on is to convert good starts by ensuring set batsmen are at the crease in the final few overs where intensity is at it's highest. That means a little more discipline and time at the crease before attacking shots are attempted.

The 2nd area of improvement the captain wanted was a better showing from his new-ball bowlers. It was a good thing that Mash himself was on the ball (3 wickets in 4 overs) as he got little support from the other end, again. 3 big wickets did little to mask a problem that exists at the moment.

Consistent length and line from both support pace bowlers were missing and they looked low in confidence.

35 runs in the Zim's Batting Power Play was not good enough either. The strategy of having both 3rd man and fine leg in the circle meant that pace bowlers had to bowl slower deliveries. This became too predictable and resulted in easy runs. A rethink is needed.

One positive in the second innings was the performance of Arafat Sunny. He stuck to his task and was discipline in delivering in the right areas and was rewarded a personal best of 4 for 29. Well done lad.

So now it's onto Dhaka leading the series 2 nil - every chance of making it 3 on Wednesday night.

The writer is a former Australia cricketer and Bangladesh's coach and currently a TV commentator.